Multilocality and the Politics of Space in Protracted Exile

Transfers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-107
Author(s):  
Dorota Woroniecka-Krzyzanowska
Keyword(s):  
Political Change ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The West ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Politics Of Space

This article employs the concept of multilocality to analyze the politics of space under the condition of protracted encampment. Rather than adopting a common synchronic approach to how refugees relate to space, the theoretical lens of multilocality grasps the diachronic dimension of protracted camps understood as places that encompass multiple attachments across time and space: the remembered and imagined places of origin, sites of residence in exile, and future geographies of hope or anticipation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in al-Am’ari, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, I analyze multilocality as a political practice whereby local residents and organizations nurture the refugee identity of their communities, resist the permanence of protracted exile, and manifest the necessity for political change.

Pilgrims, Protest Tourists, and Palestinians: Abu Dis, Bethlehem, Dheisheh Camp

2020 ◽  
pp. 016059762096475
Author(s):  
Philip Hopper
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The West ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Occupied Palestinian Territory ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Palestinian Territory ◽  
Permanent Residents

The central idea of this essay is that nonindigenous vernacular image-making by protest tourists on the Palestinian side of the Israeli separation barrier and elsewhere holds little meaning for the permanent residents beyond a relatively minor revenue stream. Prior to making this argument, I provide a short historical background about the use of vernacular messages in the occupied Palestinian territory known as the West Bank. I then focus on images of martyrs or shaheed and then on separation barrier images by protest tourists mostly in Bethlehem. The final sections are about two artists from the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp and the images they create within the camp. A coda of sorts discusses a mural within the camp that is venerated by the residents as opposed to the overpainting and defacement that takes place on the separation barrier. Within this final section and elsewhere within this essay, the meaning of sumood is explicated. As a note, protest tourists are defined here not as anti-tourism protesters but rather as tourists whose intent is protest Israeli policies regarding Palestinians.

Palestinian refugee women and the Jenin refugee camp: Reflections on urbicide and the dilemmas of home in exile

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (14) ◽  
pp. 2897-2916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahera Bleibleh ◽  
Michael Vicente Perez ◽  
Thaira Bleibleh
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
The West ◽  
Palestinian Women ◽  
Refugee Women ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Future ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
The Right

In March 2002, the Israeli military launched its most lethal attack on the West Bank since 1967. In the Jenin refugee camp, the assault included the deliberate destruction of homes and infrastructure including the entire Hawashin neighbourhood. This article considers the memories of Palestinian women who survived the urbicidal war on Jenin and confronted the difficulties of reconstruction. It shows how women enacted particular forms of agency during the siege that do not fit into discussions of urbicide or national resistance. Our analysis also examines the reconstruction of the Jenin camp to understand how its transformation reveals its significance for Palestinian women at both the levels of the home and the urban camp. We argue that the meaning of the camp is inseparable from the different ways it is inhabited. Thus for Palestinian women, the spatial reconfiguration of homes during the reconstruction of the camp permanently erased the experience of sociality once lived by women before the attack. This not only reproduced the effects of the urbicide but also disturbed the ways women inhabited the camp and provoked fears that it could be transformed into a permanent space and thus preclude the possibility of the right of return in the future.

Sensory Perceptual Experience in Balata Refugee Camp

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
Shahd Adnan M. Qzeih ◽  
Rafooneh Mokhtarshahi Sani
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Mental Image ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
The West ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Palestinian Territories ◽  
The World

Wars and conflicts have caused millions of people to seek asylum outside their homelands and the issue of refugee camps has become a pressing subject in international policy discussions. Conflicts continue to escalate in different parts of the world, especially in Middle Eastern countries. In 1948, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict forced displacement of many Palestinian people. The resulting camps have developed into cluster camp shelters of three to four stories in the West Bank, Gaza, and other regions around historical Palestine; some are perceived to be like gated communities. Being self-sufficient environments, refugee camps have rarely been approached from the perspective of urban psychology. This research deals with sensory perceptual analysis of Balata, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank of Palestinian Territories. Balata is situated in Nablus and has raised four generations of refugees since its establishment. In order to explore the spatial characteristics of such specific environmental experiences, the research adopted a mixed-method approach – systematically evaluating the related literature on sensory perceptual spaces and applying content analysis methods. The study modified the sensory slider tool of Malnar and Vodvarka according to the framework matrix based on the content analysis. Moreover, the case study analysis consisted of observation of the chosen area and 30 in-depth interviews with refugees who were forced out of their homes and settled in the camp as well as some who were born in the camp. The research results show that investigating what camp residents perceive of the five senses can capture meaningful sensory perceptual experiences and can generate a holistic mental image of the refugee camp. Particularly, perceptions of the built environment reflect the difficulty of life experiences. The study concludes that the characteristics of camps in this seventy-year-old conflict environment may not be found in other parts of the world.

Hoping for Peace during Protracted Conflict: Citizens’ Hope Is Based on Inaccurate Appraisals of Their Adversary’s Hope for Peace

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1390-1417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oded Adomi Leshem ◽  
Eran Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Change ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
The West ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Protracted Conflict ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
The Gaza Strip

Hope is an essential component in the pursuit of political change. In order to hope, citizens need to wish for the change and have some expectations that it could materialize. This article explores how the two components of hope (i.e., wishes and expectations) are constructed in the seemingly hopeless case of a protracted and violent conflict. Utilizing a large-scale survey administered in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, we show that citizens’ appraisals of their adversary’s wishes and expectations for peace affect their own wishes and expectations, which, in turn, influences their willingness to support peacebuilding efforts. Regrettably, citizens’ tendency to underestimate their rival’s wish for peace lessens their own hopes, which further abates the support for peacebuilding. The study is the first to illustrate a mechanism by which hope for peace is constructed and the pathways by which hope facilitates resolution. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Decolonial Enactments of Human Resilience

2021 ◽  
pp. 565-583
Author(s):  
Devin G. Atallah
Keyword(s):  
Structural Violence ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Global South ◽  
Ecological Models ◽  
The West ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Refugee Families ◽  
Palestinian Refugee

Critical insights on multisystemic resilience are grounded in Global South knowledge on the complexity of human relationality, which underscores that resilience does not fit neatly into ecological models. These insights are rooted in colonized communities’ embodied and emplaced struggles for dignity and decolonization. Therefore, this chapter shares the author’s reflections on multisystemic dimensions of human resilience emerging from voices of two displaced Palestinian families who participated in one of the author’s previously completed studies in the colonized territory of the West Bank. When reading through the intergenerational narratives of the two Palestinian refugee families featured in this chapter, the author invites readers to accompany him in bearing witness to stories of profound suffering associated with colonial structural violence, yet also stories of radical rehumanization, which manifest as decolonial enactments of resilience.

Photos from the Quarter

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-112
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
The West ◽  
Municipal Elections ◽  
Palestinian Refugee

This sample of photos, selected from hundreds viewed by JPS, aims to convey a sense of Palestinian life during this quarter (16 August–15 November 2016). Palestinian refugee camps from northern Syria, to Lebanon, to the West Bank, to Gaza are featured in the images, as are protests about a diversity of topics ranging from hunger strikers, to Israeli settlers, and delayed Palestinian municipal elections.

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